VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The impact of the "Covid-19 disaster" around the world is increasingly worrying. Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) as of June 24, 2021, stated that the number of people exposed to Covid-19 in the world reached almost 179 million positive cases with close to 3.9 million people dead. These numbers that continue to increase every day are really worrying for all parties.

Those who died were not only patients with certain comorbidities. The more widespread of new variants with more easily transmitted characteristics, such as the Alpha/Beta/ and Delta variants, are suspected to be the cause of the high mortality rate. Even more worrying, this virus also threatens children.

So far, many have assumed that children are more resistant when exposed to the Covid-19) than other ages. However, in Indonesia, the results of a study conducted by the Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital Jakarta team showed that 40% of pediatric patients infected with Covid-19 were at high risk of death.

In comparison, the American Academy of Pediatrics this week reported that since the pandemic began until June 17, the number of infected children accounted for 14.2 percent of the total infected across the United States of America, with a mortality rate of 0.22 percent. While an article in a medical journal entitled “Children and Adolescents with SARS-CoV-2 Infection” stated that when infected with Covid-19, children did not show symptoms (asymptomatic) or only had mild symptoms.

Therefore, it is necessary to emphasize the importance of parents all over the world, including Indonesia, to take care of their children more strictly. They have to avoid taking children out of the house, except in urgent circumstances and always comply with health protocols!

World Health Organisation -WHO as a World Agency must of course move faster to deal with cases among children so that the number who died due to Covid-19 can be minimized.